I recently went to Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi (the 18th of March University in Çanakkale, Turkey) on a trip arranged by Prof. Mustafa Yunus Eryaman. The faculty there were wonderful hosts and showed me many excellent projects, including international connections, in this rapidly growing university.

While in Çanakkale, I lectured on Learning at the Border, presented in a doctoral seminar on Integrating Technology with Literacy, and visited Children’s House (Çocuklar Evi), a preschool.

There was much interest at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversites in our community informatics work, in part because John Dewey had played such an important role in establishing education in the new Turkish nation. In the summer of 1924, Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) had invited Dewey to advise him on modernizing the Turkish educational system, including instituting compulsory primary education for both girls and boys. Reforms were intended to enhance literacy and thus to raise a generation able to participate in what Ataturk called the public culture.